Café Fledermaus — Restaurant in New York

We went to the basement cafe to avoid the long line upstairs at the normal cafe. There was no line but the waiters told my mom and me to wait on a bench ten feet from the cafe entrance. All of the waiters forgot about us and about ten min later a couple asked for a table for two and the waiters tried to seat them right away! I went up and told them we’d been waiting where they told us to and the table was ours. The waiters all seemed confused, didn’t recognize us from the few minutes before, and tried to tell us we had to wait again. The guy from the couple even tried to yell at me though the woman understood what was going on. After that, the table we were at forced us to have woman hacking and coughing next to us our entire meal and talking about how sick she’s been all week. The food was good. Soup is delicious but ridiculously overpriced. The waitress barely bothered to stop to take our order or give us the receipt. Plus she told us she’d bring extra silverware since we split a dish and she didn’t bring the extra set out. Keep in mind there are very few tables in this cafe and plenty of waiters. Will order to go next time to avoid the germ-ridden customers and poor service, when I feel like spending $50 for a...

At the risk of disclosing my age, I have been a patron of this place since it opened. Never fond of the service kept coming back because there is nothing else in the area. On this last visit on January 2023, I was taken aback by a waiter who took his time to bring the menu, never greeted me at all, as he did to both customers seated on either side. After paying cash, brought back loose bills and change (without a holder) that he plopped on the table without saying thank you, with no receipt- to add insult to his lack of manners, he shortchanged me. It seems he mistook me for a naive elderly tourist. Noticing I was missing money I had to call the manager to explain that the change was incorrect. Apparently arithmetic is not a requirement to work there, but finally they realized I was owed money; but what they really owed me was an apology for having a server that chooses who amongst his customers will...

I was a bit put off by the security that, among other things, didn’t permit me to bring in a bottle of water. I realize it’s a museum but I was just going into the cafe and even if it didn’t feel unnecessarily strict, the men at the door and desk were very taciturn. Cafe Sabarsky was a beautiful room and while there wouldn’t have been much of a wait, we went downstairs to Cafe Fledermaus where it’s much more informal. The food was very well presented...